r r'Z. 


















RESERVE STORAGE 



Gass 

Book 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 


/ 












gs>f)at>oto£f 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


THE 

LOVE LETTERS OF A MYSTIC 
MEMORIES 
THE BLUE STRING 
A JEWEL IN THE SAND 




b a & o to si 


Pp &lma Jletoton 

H 

!3utt)or of “tEfje £obe betters of a Jflpsittc,” 
M 9 Ifetoel tn tfje gbanb,” etc. 


Jleto pork : Slofyn ILant Company 
Hon&on: fofjtt Hatte, Cfje Poblcp ©eak 
MQVIXXX 



?23 
, l\/4 il 

Co p>y 3s 


COPYRIGHT, 1921, 

By JOHN LANE COMPANY 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Company 
New York, U. S. A. 


MAR 26 1921 
© C!. A 6 0 8 8 3 4 





V 


Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE HEIGHTS AND A ROSE 9 

II. LOVE, DEATH, AND THE SAPPHIRE SKY 14 

III. A SHADOW, A CRYSTAL AND THE 

DAWN 22 

IV. A FIGURE IN WHITE 30 

V. THE MOON AND THE WATER-SPIRITS . 33 

VI. SHADOWS 37 

VII. PARADISE 43 

VIII. THE SUN-FLOWER 47 

IX. THE SILENT MUSIC 50 

X. THE ASTRAL COURTSHIP 53 

XI. THE ARTS 57 

XII. THE WHITE FLAME 61 

XIII. SACRIFICE 64 

XIV. THE TREES 

XV. A DREAM AND THE SEA 76 




I — Cfte I£>eig&t 0 anO a Eo0e 


She was quite tall and developed and wonder- 
fully intellectual; yet the few people who saw 
her spoke of her as the “little girl.” Perhaps 
it was because of the sadness or the sweetness 
in her face, for they are one and the same. 

Everyone felt tenderly about her. All 
wanted to say something gentle when they 
spoke of her but they did not know what to 
say, so on the mountain where she lived they 
just called her the little girl or the poor child. 
She seemed very strange to them and that was 
because she was very wise. 

Now this strange girl was beautiful. She 
had large blue eyes that looked deep into the 
heart of things; she had bronze hair and full 
lips. There was something beautiful in her 
voice. She had a reluctant way of saying good- 
bye to the people who left her on the mountain. 
She clung to the last syllable in a most unusual 
way, a sort of caress and sadness there was in it 
— a tone — a note that almost broke, yet re- 


o 


^Jwdotos 


IO 


tained its sweetness. It was suggestive — in- 
complete. There was nothing obvious in her 
personality. She was unique. 

Sometimes when the visitors asked how she 
was, she would answer them very frankly, with- 
out any formality at all : “I am so tired — I am 
so lonely — so weary;” and just the way she said 
so seemed to suggest the word — longing — as 
though something of the scheme of life was 
piercing its way through her mind, telling her 
of universal things. 

She had suffered terribly from the loss of 
one of whom she said, “My great miseries in 
this world have been his miseries and I have 
watched and felt each from the beginning. If 
all else should perish and he remain, I should 
continue to be, and if all else should remain 
and he be annihilated the universe would turn 
to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part 
of it. Whatever our souls are made of, his 
and mine are the same.” 

Her body too had been racked with agony; 
with torture; with fierce and unbeautiful pain. 
Sometimes pain is beautiful, it brings a flower 
— a child — a memory — but her pain had been 
bleak, sterile, futile! 


Cfte ^>eigJ)t0 ano a Iftose n 


Now she spent most of her time trying to 
create a garden about her home on the top of 
the mountain, but all the flowers that had 
colour refused to grow; they seemed to hate 
the soil there. So she often tried to make 
strong things grow: geraniums and roses and 
yellow chrysanthemums; but just as soon as 
they were about to bloom, quite suddenly, they 
would die. 

One morning she found that one of the trees 
had a white bud on it, strong and perfect. 
“This will live,” she said; “I think, if it dies, 
I too shall die. It is a symbol. It is also love 
and a prayer.” 

That day a stranger drove up to the heights. 
People so rarely came there that she was 
startled, bewildered by the presence of the 
stranger. 

“Show me your flowers,” said this woman, 
kindly. “Let us walk in your garden.” Now 
this she said tenderly, with the hope of inter- 
esting the lonely girl. 

“I haven’t any flowers — I have only one.” 
Twisting her hands nervously in fear, she said : 
“Please don’t look at it, it is really not worth 
seeing — it is just a little rose — that’s all. I 


§>fca0otos! 


12 


am afraid to have anyone look at it; yesterday 
I looked at it and it seemed to quiver and 
change colour and to withdraw its perfume.” 

“I understand,” said the woman. “I won’t 
look at it, but I wonder if you understand me? 
Look at me, have you never seen me before? 
Have you never seen me in your dreams? Try 
to remember !” 

“No,” said the girl. “There is something 
I feel about you, but I don’t know what it is. 
I think I must go in now. I am afraid and I 
am very cold — I am not strong — sometimes I 
think I am very ill. Good-bye. . . .” 

The woman went reluctantly away; she 
drove down the long road to the valley where 
a small stream wandered through the moun- 
tains toward the sea. She felt an irresistible 
desire to go back, yet she did not know how to 
do so. Quietly, solemnly, she got into her 
boat. The man who was waiting for her took 
the oars and pulled the boat into the middle 
of the stream. For an hour they sat silently 
facing each other — until quite suddenly the 
woman said to her companion: “What is that 
floating there in the water?” 

“Oh, it’s nothing, it is just a rose,” said the 


Ci )t ^eigJ)t0 anD a I&ose 13 


man. “Someone has dropped it out of the 
boat.” 

On and on it floated — the rose. I am so 
tired — so tired — it seemed to say. 

The dark woman leaned over the edge of 
the boat and tried to grasp the rose. 

“Be careful,” said her companion. “There 
is danger here.” 

“I do not like to look at that rose,” said 
the woman, “drifting there, alone; let us go 
closer so that I may have it. Early this morn- 
ing when the dew drops kissed the flowers in 
my garden something was dying, I felt it!” 

“You are romantic,” said the man, “and ill.” 

“Perhaps,” said the woman. “That is why 
I am sensitive enough to recognise truth when 
I see it. I tell you that rose has a soul — it is 
a child — and somehow it belongs to me!” 

The man reached out for the rose and 
handed it to the woman. She sat motionless 
looking deep into the heart of it. 

Finally they reached the shore. Suddenly 
the sun came out and she caught the reflection 
of the rose in the water. She saw a face in its 
petals hut she said nothing to the man about it. 


II.— Lofie, Dead) anO tbe ^appinre 


“Why do the sail boats drift so calmly over 
the sea to-day and why do the stars still shine 
in spite of the sun? I thought that it was only 
through the darkness that the stars were seen?” 

“It is because they feel the radiance from 
your soul, it sends forth a message to the 
sapphire sky,” said the man. 

“But why do the boats glide so smoothly 
over the blue waters and go so proudly toward 
the shore?” asked the woman. “I do not un- 
derstand.” 

“It is because the beauty that your soul sent 
to the stars has called to the sea. The young 
moon is always talking to the sea. It loves 
the tide. Why shouldn’t the stars love it too 
— is not the colour the same?” 

“Yes,” answered the woman. “But it fright- 
ens me. If my soul, the sky and the water are 
so naturally and surely bound together, I am 
afraid — for my body is also allied to forces 
that are as big — as distant — as dangerous! 

H 


Lo toe, Deatj) and tfte §)appftire §>kp 1 5 


My soul — the sky — and the sea,” she mur- 
mured again. “I do not like it. I have always 
felt a certain fear of the sky. Its immensity 
— its silence — and I have thought that if some 
terrible grief — some sudden shock should come 
to me that my soul would take flight, it would 
rush suddenly up to the sky leaving my body 
helpless — apathetic — a mere shell; while my 
soul would float above the white clouds and the 
evening star in the stillness of the great firma- 
ment, never quite reaching a Paradise — forever 
longing, groping — going toward Venus; feeling 
its call, its sensuous beauty, its colour, catch- 
ing glimpses of the beautiful God-like men and 
women there, watching glorious lovers walk 
calmly into the green and gold of its life and 
never being able to reach it myself; then slowly 
to wander again into the vast spaces of the 
ether, seeing the great Mars, Jupiter, the Sun, 
trying to reach them too; then to look down 
upon the earth and see my body, yet powerless 
to reach it; living as it were between two 
worlds. Oh, do not speak to me of the sky 
being a part of my soul ! I know it only too 
well! Let us speak of something else. Let us 


%ij)aHotos 


16 


speak of my hands — my heart — my Tell 

me of them, my lover — tell me of them.” 

“Come closer to the shore and I will tell 
you,” said the man. “Your hands press my 
temples, so that the pain may go, the thought 
that goes with them sends this message far 
into the ether and soothes the tortured souls 
in the astral world, just as it soothes my own. 
Your heart beats a rhythm which resounds in 
the shades of that world, giving strength to 
the pilgrims that kneel in the darkness; light- 
ing the way to Paradise. Your feet crush the 
violets when we walk in the woods ; they bless 
the small pebbles, the shells, the sand as we 
walk on the shore so that they shine and send 
out brightness to the sea and music to the 
dawn ! And sometimes the ships that pass 
change their course because of this. They see 
colours here on the beach and the children call 
out to the captain that they see agates and 
moonstones and diamonds in the sand, and cor- 
als and seaweeds and large pearls in the sea ! 
The lighthouse sends a flash toward the shore, 
and the crimson ray looses itself in purple 
shadows and makes a new colour for the chil- 
dren to see !” 


Lotoe, Dead) anD tjje ^appime 17 


“But if I have a radiance I want only you 
to feel it,” answered the woman. “I want the 
energy of my soul concentrated definitely, 
wholly for you. I don’t want it scattered, con- 
fused with the elements, with children, with 
colours. I want it only for you. Yesterday 
when I saw you smile at that Venetian girl, 
I knew the significance with which it reached 
her mind. How could you think of others 
when you are with me? I know that you 
smiled because her youthfulness, her fresh 
loveliness answered the art in you as well as 
the call of your blood, and, while I knew that 
I gave you something that the younger woman 
could not give, I knew that she too could give 
something that I could not give, and for a 
moment I hated you as I hated her. I tell 
you that I shall kill her if she continues to 
annoy me. . . 

“Come, my dear one,” said the man. “You 
are tired to-day, you have walked too far. Let 
us go back to the city, to the music and to love. 
You will forget there. You are tired here.” 

“I do not want to go there,” answered the 
woman. “For I know that she is there. She 
will pass you in her gondola ; the curtains will 


§>6aOotos 


18 


be drawn, but by some strange power you will 
know when she passes. Your gondolier too 
will know and he will direct his course out 
toward the Lido, following her, gliding, drift- 
ing, into the great night! There is a perfume 
on her gondola; there are also lace veils 
uniquely placed that she may gaze upon you 
and yet remain concealed; there is a strange 
music that her maid sings to her as they drift 
so discreetly, yet so sensuously down the Grand 
Canal ! Sometimes she puts her hand into the 
water, it runs through her fingers and throws 
up a reflection to you and then boldly her 
gondola stops as it passes yours. The maid 
sings again the low enchanting song. It is a 
call — a call of June — the beginning of summer 
— the beginning of love — of freshness and of 
youth. Some day I shall take those white 
fingers and twist them into ugliness ; that warm 
throat of hers will turn an ugly colour; her 
eyes will ” 

“Hush,” said the man. “How changed you 
are ! You have become coarse.” 

“Is intensity coarseness? Is sincerity coarse- 
ness?” asked the woman. 

“No,” answered the man. “But you are act- 


Ho toe, Deatf) anD tfte §>applrire §>bp 19 


ing badly to-day some of those tragedies that 
you have done so exquisitely, the emotion of 
which is too perfect to be distorted in this way, 
into a tantrum about a mere girl, a pink and 
white personality with delicate hands ! It is 
not artistic, it offends me ; be quiet.” 

“You put art before love — I put love be- 
fore art. My love is my art, you do not under- 
stand,” answered his mate. 

“I beg you to be quiet,” repeated the man. 
“Even your voice is offensive when you speak 
in this way. It is harsh, discordant, un- 
real ” 

“Nothing I have ever done before has hurt 
you. Whatever I have done in the past has 
pleased you, while of late you are hurt, easily 
irritated, displeased. If your love is dying, I 
too shall die, while the other woman is just 
beginning to live !” 

Slowly, silently, the man and woman walked 
away from the shore. The woman was white, 
determined, enraged. There was a silence of 
death about her, while the silence of the man 
was the silence of indifference. 

They parted, they said nothing, she was 
seeing for a moment into the future, and 


^(jaDotos 


20 


he was thinking of the gondola that floated so 
beautifully down the canal — of the perfume — 
the fine lace — the veil 

A year passed. One day the woman was 
sitting in her garden, the royal flowers of Italy 
were growing about her, sending out their 
strength, their fragrance, when a man suddenly 
appeared before her. 

“I have come back,” he said, “and I have 
come through the garden gate, through the 
shaded path where we walked so often to- 
gether. I came in just the same way as I did 
a year ago, for I am the same. I want you — 
I want my soul again.” 

The woman did not turn, she did not look at 
him, she kept on gazing toward the sky that 
seemed to touch the sea. 

“Why don’t you answer me?” he said arro- 
gantly. 

The woman said, “Your art — you still have 
it — your imperious strength, you still have it, 
but I have nothing. My body is a shell. My 
mind is a blank.” 

“It is your soul that I want,” interrupted 


Lotoe, Deati) anO t be ©appfrire ©kg 21 


the man impulsively. “I must have it, it is 
mine, I need it. I want it, now ” 

“It is dead,” said the woman, solemnly. 

“Souls never die,” answered the man 
abruptly. “Why speak of impossible things?” 

“Mine is dead, not only to you, but to me. 
It has gone so far away that I cannot call it 
back again.” 

“Not even I?” said the man. 

“Not even you,” said the woman. “Don’t 
you understand? It is very simple. It was 
love — death — and the sapphire sky!” 


iil— a§>jbaooto, a Crg0tal 
anO tfte Daton 


“Why does the man, there, under the trees, sit 
so calmly? Does he not see any of the pilgrims 
kneeling at his. feet? And does he not hear 
the music of the sun-rays as they fall upon his 
heart?” 

“He is in a state of meditation, my child,” 
said the mother. 

“What is meditation, mother? Is it some- 
thing sweet?” 

“Yes, and more, much more than you could 
understand. Let us go nearer and see.” 

“No,” said the child. “Yesterday I saw 
jewels and colours that I could not see when 
I was close to him because the sun was too 
bright there. Each day I see different things 
about him. Yesterday I saw purple cloth, 
rubies and fine lace, and the music was so sweet, 
but to-day I see pink doves and lotus buds! 
What do you see, mother?” 

“I see only the man and the people about 
22 


a §>i)aOoto, a Crpstal anD tfte Daton 23 


him. There are so many to-day. Can you see 
them, dear?” 

“Yes, and I see crimson birds with yel- 
low breasts. They are flying toward him while 
the trees bow their heads. Do you think they 
are longing to hear? And the people at his 
feet are so strange, mother; they are different 
in colour, age and size and they look so wise !” 

“One is a philosopher and he listens so atten- 
tively; there is a dramatist, a novelist and there 
are sages and artists too,” said the mother. 
“Let us go nearer, so that we can hear what he 
says; I am sure he will talk soon, for he has 
been thinking so long and looking so far away 
into the blue.” 

“I see strange things at his feet, mother. 
There is a shadow, a crystal and a pink cloud, 
and the sun is shining through the cloud; it is 
so rosy and warm.” 

“Yes, it is a symbol, my child, of his life on 
earth; now that he is in Paradise the shadow 
has grown fainter and the crystal brighter ; we 
should only think of the crystal now and for- 
get the shadow — the crystal stands for art, the 
beautiful things that he knew, and the pink 
cloud that you see means the dawn. It means 


§>6aOoto0 


24 


revelation, the revelation that came through 
his sorrow — the sorrow that his art made 
beautiful ! That is why great people come here 
to learn from him — it is only the small people 
that still think of the shadow — but this you 
cannot understand, my little one. Why do 
you ask so many things — things that you can- 
not know — just now?” 

“It is because I love him, mother ! Every 
day I come out here and watch him. He has 
never seen me and I should be afraid if he did, 
if he looked at me, for his eyes are so wonder- 
ful, I think they would frighten me! Some- 
times I see tears in his eyes, mother — one day 
I crept up close to him when the pilgrims had 
gone away. I watched the tears flow down his 
cheek and fall upon the crystal, and whenever 
they did, the crystal changed its colour, it 
changed into a beautiful blue. I was afraid 
and I ran away — I was afraid that his heart 
would break, he looked so sad, and I thought 
that if it did the sun wouldn’t shine any more 
and the trees would die and the birds would all 
fly away! He said such strange things that 
day — what did he mean by this? My heart 
was too full of music — my mind of purple and 


a^>fwDoto,a Crystal anDtfjeDaton 25 


gold — my blood of energy and false standards, 
until my heart broke and then a soul was born 
and now I can listen to the music and not be 
afraid — afraid of the motifs that at first were 
too big to grasp — afraid of its rhythm that 
was too quick to define — afraid of its notes that 
were too many and mixed — afraid of the cres- 
cendoes, the half tones, the false notes, the 
base! The chords that startled with their 
eagerness — the vibrations that bewildered and 
confused until the music became distorted — the 
notes rusty and hard — the melody gone ” 

“Some day, I will explain it to you, my child, 
when you are old enough to understand.” 

“Tell me his name anyhow, mother; that 
much I could know, now.” 

“But names are meaningless, my child; let 
us walk a little nearer and perhaps the flowers, 
at his feet, will write his name for you ; some- 
times they do this, in Paradise. Go nearer and 
see ; the rose petals are beginning to move — the 
lotus buds — the water lilies — go nearer, look 
for the first name in the flowers — the second 
in the pool; the seaweed will help you to read 
— look down — down — into the depths and see.” 

“Yes, mother, I see, but there are strange 


2 6 §>imooto0 


words and they don’t seem like a man’s name 
— the words are De Profundis — what do they 
mean, mother? The flowers will not write 
anything now. I don’t think I can look any 
more ” 

“You have seen enough. It means that he 
wants his life forgotten and his work remem- 
bered 1” 

“He smiled when you said that, mother, and 
the pilgrims listened and the crystal changed. 
The pilgrims are calling you now, will you 
talk to them?” 

The mother, walking slowly toward the pil- 
grims, said, “Once I took his book, the ‘De 
Profundis,’ and put it over my heart. Of course 
I know that to the people on earth it would 
seem a sentimental act, but it was really done 
in a spirit of reverence, and as a symbol; for 
that book had done more to soothe my heart 
than anything in the world; more than people 
had done and more than things had done; those 
pages in which suffering and humiliation had 
been made beautiful — through this a soul had 
been born. 

“In reading his works, I had read them im- 
personally, quite detached from the author, as 


a ©fmOoto, a Crystal anD tfte Daton 27 


all books should be read. It is the art in them 
that should affect us, just as it does in paint- 
ing or in music. When we see a beautiful paint- 
ing, we forget the artist and only remember the 
idea that he is expressing. In this book I felt 
the awakened man ; I knew that he was sincere 
when he said: 

“ ‘There is not a single degradation of the 
body which I must not try and make into a 
spiritualisation of the soul 

“It was an ever-present thing with me, I felt 
his sorrow so deeply, it penetrated itself in such 
a way that it became a part of me, especially 
the big and noble way in which he admitted 
his guilt and transmuted it into a refinement 
too exquisite for shallow minds to grasp, for 
he reached the pinnacle of intellectual great- 
ness, of spiritual exaltation, not surpassed by 
any known mind, and he has given in the finest 
form and deepest meaning the most fitting con- 
ception of our beautiful Christ, who would be, 
of course, the first one to understand the re- 
birth in him, and the first to love him for his 
humility and for his suffering. 

“At first I thought when reading these pages 
— Oh, the pity of it, the pity of it! and then 


^fjaOotos 


28 


his own words came to me, magnificently signif- 
icant words; they were: 

“ ‘Every human being should be the fulfil- 
ment of a prophecy, for every human being 
should be the realisation of some ideal either 
in the mind of God or in the mind of man.’ 

“ ‘When one comes in contact with the soul 
one becomes as simple as a little child, as Christ 
said one should be.’ 

“ ‘There is nothing left for me except abso- 
lute humility!’ 

“A lily in Paradise bloomed that day, the 
day he wrote this book ! It had to bloom, for 
always there are flowers born where there are 
beautiful thoughts. The Law of Correspond- 
ence makes it so ! It always did and it always 
will. . . . 

“One rainy night I made a pilgrimage to 
St. Jean Baptiste. It was a cold, bleak night 
and the little church seemed far away, but I 
determined to go there. I went to make a 
Novena for myself, but, somehow, as I went 
into the darkened church the thought of this 
soul came to me and the candle I burned glim- 
mered faintly at first and then suddenly burst 
into a clear white light. To me it was a sym- 


a ©ftaDoto, a Crystal attD t fie Daton 29 


bol, it was unique; the light that came out of 
the darkness — the birth of his soul. It im- 
pressed me so, and I wondered if anyone else 
had burned a candle for his soul. 

“Suddenly the door opened and a figure came 
in and my candle flickered. The breeze that’' 
came through the door sank into the corner 
with a sigh. It seemed that it was a sigh of 
rest, of the final peace. Poor soul I thought, 

poor soul ! Was it the artistic side of me 

that made me love him so, or was he near me? 
Perhaps he was really there, for I have never 
been able since then to think of him except as 
my friend ! 

“The pilgrims have come so far to learn of 
him, my child, but you learn from the trees, 
the crimson birds — the lotus buds, while they 
must learn through words. When they have 
gone a little farther into Paradise they too will 
know things without words — they have just 
entered here.” 

“Look, mother,” said the child, “he is smil- 
ing now, and the pilgrims listen and the crystal 
has changed! It has changed into a beautiful 
sapphire blue. }> 


IV.— a Jftgure in mbitt 


Mark Antony had made his immortal ad- 
dress. Brutus had tasted the insidious draught 
of humiliation. The city had become silent 
after a terrible and magnificent day. It was 
dusk and Ccesar was dead! 

In the distance was heard the low muffled 
voices of the bewildered people, weird in their 
repression, tense in their restraint; whispering, 
muttering, Casar is dead! 

The people moved incessantly but quietly, 
vindictively but solemnly. A hideous silence 
held the city in an agony of indignant revolt. 
The moon came up with a face of stone; the 
stars seemed frozen in the sky and the trees 
brought malignant whispers, weird premoni- 
tions and warnings of death. 

The great night palpitated with an energy, 
supreme and undenied, and nothing slept, noth- 
ing was at peace, for Caesar was dead. 

The purple shadows crept more heavily upon 
the dusk and seemed to enter the room where 
Caesar lay, mingling their purple with the 
30 


a jfigure in COJnte 3 1 


deeper purple of his robe, striking a magnifi- 
cent chord of colour harmony with the crimson 
that covered the tall windows through which 
they passed. All those who knew and loved 
Caesar were allowed to enter the great room 
where he lay, mighty and yet helpless in death. 
A few were left to watch by his side. Tall 
candles flickered and went out. Flowers threw 
out their perfume and then folded their leaves 
in despair ; incense burned steadily, while the 
night went on toward the dismal day. Silence 
and mystery mingled together, like high Priest- 
esses of the barren night. 

Suddenly and yet solemnly a tall figure 
entered the room. It was a woman. She was 
dressed entirely in white, a simple gown it was, 
long, beautiful, graceful, pure. A white veil 
of exquisite lace covered her face, her whole 
body seemed shrouded in a celestial cloud of 
white. Her arms were full of white flowers, 
those of the stately kind. She walked calmly, 
regally, toward the Imperial Couch and with 
perfect modesty and royal assurance she went 
toward the body of Caesar. “Who is she?” 
said a voice. “Stop her,” said another. She 
heard them but did not turn, she walked 


§>imooto0 


3 2 


straight and divinely towards Caesar. Kneel- 
ing at his feet,' she kissed them; then going to 
his side, she touched his hand; then, as though 
lost in her still and terrible grief, she again 
knelt but lifted her head, for one moment she 
looked up and out of the window, past the ter- 
rible shadows, into the great night, as though 
scanning the Heavens for light, as though ask- 
ing for divine messengers to guard Caesar, and 
then quite proudly and quite fearlessly she 
dropped her head again, but this time she 
pressed her lips upon the lips of Caesar. “Stop 
her,” said a voice. “Be quiet,” said another. 
“It is beautiful,” said the invisible presences of 
the night. 

“Who are you?” said the first voice. 

“Why did you come at this hour?” said the 
other, while the invisible presences seemed to 
answer, “What does it matter who she is, what 
does it matter the hour? What does it mat- 
ter? Casar is dead!” 

The woman turned solemnly and lifted her 
veil. Looking steadily, fearlessly, into the eyes 
of the people, she said, “What does it matter, 
indeed, yet I will tell you! I am one of the 
women who loved Casar!” 


v.— Cfte epoon anti tbt 22later^pmts 


Her face was aquiline; her mind was aquiline. 
She was strange and fine, and her soul was 
closely allied to nature. She seemed to be a 
part of it. Now her ears were sensitive be- 
cause she had developed them so as to hear 
the music of the waves and thus they had be- 
come attuned to the sounds of nature and for- 
eign to those of the world of action and strife. 
She was placid and sweet by nature, but 
the tuning of her soul or herself to a higher 
key had made her irritable when she was sur- 
rounded by noise and people, which are 
sometimes one and the same. 

The moon loved the water and tried to draw 
it up to itself; the sun sank into the heart of 
it. Children played on the beach and chris- 
tened the sand with it and above all was the 
evening star ! 

“Don’t you see, don’t you see?” she said to 
these people. “I love the sea, I cannot help be- 
ing changed; it is the sea music, the sea voices 
33 


§)ftaooto0 


34 


that I hear! If I hear you I cannot hear them 
and I so want to hear them! They teach me 
things, while you only destroy. I listen so as 
to tell you things that you cannot hear for 
yourselves.” 

But the people only laughed and shook their 
heads and made stupid remarks about her. 

At dawn, when the sea was covered with 
rainbows, while coral and jade clouds kissed 
the edge of the trees, she heard voices. These 
voices had colour. Some were sapphire blue 
and others were emerald green; the blue ones 
brought messages from the sky, but the green 
ones brought music from the trees. Also there 
were the white spirits that came down on a 
path from the moon. They came on a carpet 
of silver covered with white roses, which 
seemed to be there merely to give perfume to 
the moon-spirits as they passed. Now these 
moon-spirits are good and wise and calm. They 
bring a music so transcendental that only the 
flowers can hear it. Sometimes she heard a 
few notes and had to guess the theme. They 
smiled and were pleased. Often they came 
down to talk to the girl who loved the sea be- 


Cf )t e©oon anO tfte ftOater^pmts 35 


cause hers was the soul of a water-spirit, for 
the water-spirits are very close to the moon- 
spirits ! They love each other. 

When she saw them coming, in her dream, 
she lifted her arms toward 'them and they 
came closer and closer until they reached her, 
taking her soul away. 

The next day, when she awakened, she would 
write these dreams into small fables. The 
people thought them pretty but meaningless. 
They did not know that they were symbols of 
the moon, the sky and the sea. Now at this 
she was pleased for she knew that her fables 
had merit because these shallow people did 
not understand them. Whenever she was away 
from the sea these spirits did not visit her 
and she became desolate and lonely. Her 
body grew weary and ill and more than the 
sea on earth, she longed for the sea which she 
had seen in the heart of the moon! 

“There is no music like the moon-music,” 
she said. “It has a fineness which is incompre- 
hensible to material ears. It is like snow fall- 
ing on silver bells in the beginning, and the end 
we can never hear! But I know that it has 
wild flowers in it, and the smiles of little chil- 


@>j)aootos 


36 


dren. It has the blue one sees in a crystal, 
it has the pink one sees in a perfect pearl. It 
comes on a wave and it curls and breaks into 
song — but this song is only heard by those who 
love the moon, the sky and the sea ! 


vl— §) j)aooto0 


It was dawn. The hour when beauty alone 
should reign, but in man’s world it is the time 
for death as well as for birth — the end as well 
as the beginning. At that hour I slept. My 
soul travelled far into strange and terrible re- 
gions, weird neighbourhoods of men. It was 
like a bird with a broken wing. It merely 
drifted with the strongest current of air. Now 
the strongest current at that hour on this morn- 
ing was moving toward a prison. Before I 
realised it, I was there in that place called 
prison but commonly known as Hell, for it 
possessed not only evil spirits, gnashing teeth 
and broken hearts, but foul odours, sinister 
warnings, weird messages of death. 

Suddenly I was in a room with strangers. It 
was dark and heavily shadowed. These 
shadows seemed to move on the wall gro- 
tesquely. 

A tall young man with clear blue eyes said 
to me, “I think I will go to-morrow, I will wait 
37 


38 §>J)aooto0 


until to-morrow.” I said, “Yes,” as I looked 
into his deep blue eyes, not knowing why I did 
so, “Yes, you will go to-morrow!” A little 
woman in a brown dress said, “I wonder if it’s 
over yet.” Another said, “I’ll see,” while the 
shadows again regained their motion and 
seemed to glide around the wall. 

An officer appeared in the door and said, 
“You can come in now.” Mechanically I fol- 
lowed him down a long aisle to a room which 
I entered with the others. In this room of 
death there was a figure of a man clad in grey, 
lying on a cot close to the floor. His neck was 
twisted horribly to one side and there was the 
pallor of death upon his face. The breathing 
had ceased and yet he smiled ! 

At first I thought it was the smile that some- 
times comes into a face after death, the smile 
of peace; but I looked again and to my horror 
I saw that he was speaking to* me! Out of the 
smile, the lips moved and he spoke to me ! The 
others knelt down beside the cot and sobbed, 
while the young man with the deep blue eyes 
cried aloud and said, “O John! John!” and 
the others then cried aloud, and I turned and 
walked away. . . . 


^J)aOoto0 


39 


I awakened. The vision was so keen and 
hideously real that I could not forget it. 

All that day it followed me. I knew then 
the reality, the torture of being haunted; of 
not being able to escape a soul in the other 
world when it desires to be near one. All that 
day I walked, walked, trying to send it away, 
but as the evening came on it seemed to cling 
more closely to me ! In the night it crouched 
by my bed as though afraid. 

At dawn I awakened. He was standing at 
the foot of my bed, his neck still twisted, his 
poor face smiling and his lips still moving. 

“Oh,” I cried, “it’s real, it’s real! But what 
can I do for you?” And again I said, “What 
can I do for you, dear?” as I would to a 
wounded child. “Can’t the others, your 
friends, help you? Those that love you and 
cried at your feet? The young man and the 
little woman in brown?” 

“No,” he said wearily. “That is why they 
cannot help me. They love me and they cry 
at my feet; you can help because you do not 
cry and because you know the Way.” 

“What way?” I asked. “What way?” 

“The Way,” he answered, “through, on, on 


©jjaOotos 


40 


to the Brightness ! I don’t know what you call 
it, but you are not afraid of the road and you 
know how to go.” 

“I see, I see,” I answered. “You want me 
to take you through the astral world, up to 
the White Kingdom of God.” 

“I don’t know what you call it,” he answered. 
“I know I am in darkness and so near the earth 
I can still see the chair, I can feel the current 
and hear those voices and the crying ... I see 
the shadows there — here — everywhere!” 

“And yet you smile,” I said; “how strange it 
is!” 

“I smile because you came, because you can 
take me away, because you saw, you heard and 
did not cry,” he answered eagerly. 

Lovingly, tenderly, I went toward him. My 
fear had vanished. 

“Give me your hands, your poor dear hands 
— hold fast to my hands and never let go for 
a minute. Never fear, never look back — just 
trust to me as you would to your mother, for 
you say that I know the way ! Let us drift on, 
on, far away, but to do this we must first sleep 
and then in a moment we will be there ! There 
where every shadow is turned into a golden 


^j)aOoto 0 


41 


dream; where torture is changed into ecstasy, 
where your hands will grasp stronger, kinder 
hands than mine — where there is only the noon 
of things; no dawn, no twilight, no cares, no 

sighs Now we are going, don’t think, 

just trust to me. . . 

And then I found myself singing to him as 
I would to a child, a sort of little prayer on 
the way. Soon the darkness goes, the music 
comes, music you never heard before, each 
plane is a melody, each melody an echo and the 
echo is for you. Each echo has a colour and 
each colour has a flower, each flower is a prom- 
ise and the promise is for you. Each promise 
is a symbol, each symbol is a prayer and the 
prayer is for you. Each prayer is a poem, each 
poem is a blessing and the blessing is for you. 
. . . ” On — on — I sang until he slept. 

And after my sleep I awakened to feel a 
sense of perfect peace in my room and more — 
that of a radiant happiness ! For a stranger 
had come to me, someone had asked me to be a 
pilot on a strange astral sea, to push aside ele- 
mentals, to pass the Dweller on the Thresh- 
old, to rise from one plane to another, to take 
a frightened, desolate soul on toward the 




42 


Brightness! To serve while the body rested! 

The next day I took up a newspaper. 
Casually I turned the pages. On the top of 
the fourth page my eyes fell upon these words : 

“Two men went to the chair yesterday morn- 
ing at dawn, Prison. One of them a 

middle-aged man, unusual refinement, beloved 

by his fellow prisoners, John ” The 

newspaper fell to the floor. I could read no 
more! 


vii.— paraoise 


“The soul of every beautiful thing is silent.” 

She said nothing. She walked up the stairs 
proudly and stood at the top of the stairway. 
It seemed that he had planned to say something 
to her, something beautiful, something fine 
enough to be heard by this woman of his 
dreams, but fate had arranged it otherwise. 

These two souls were so close together that 
words hurt, they jarred and distorted the 
beauty of their love. Now she had planned to 
be very reserved, for he had not told her of 
his love, so she walked up the stairs with the 
determination to meet him in an apparently in- 
different way. He did not come down to meet 
her, but stood there silently, reverently, as she 
came calmly up to greet him and, before she 
realised it, she walked straight into his arms. 
Still they said nothing. She stood there a long 
time and not a word was spoken. He did not 
kiss her, he knew that nothing could unite their 
43 


StjaDotos 


44 


souls so solemnly, so majestically, as a supreme 
silence. 

He also knew that it was this silence that 
would make her realise that their minds were 
one, for her soul wanted to sink deep down into 
his soul and it was the silence that made this 
possible. They walked into the room. Then 
she tried to speak, but she could not; the silence 
had gripped her. All of her objective faculties 
w T ere dumb for the moment, so that the voice 
of the silence might speak. 

Now the voice of the silence is a smile. 
Poets have written about it, artists have put 
it into colour and bronze, mothers have put it 
into song, for they know that it is an expres- 
sion of infinite music and that after the silence 
and a smile God is pleased. 

He had felt that he was destined to wait 
for someone, someone symmetrically developed, 
someone who delighted the eye, inspired the 
mind and awakened the soul. And now she 
had come ! Quite silently she had walked into 
his life, without warning. He looked up and 
she was there. It was as though a door had 
closed out all the darkness, a door that shut 
out worldliness, ugliness and vain women who 


Paraoi0e 


45 


talked! Why did women talk? he wondered. 
Why did they desecrate the silence and distort 
the full beauty of a moment, with words? The 
women he had known had done this. They felt 
called upon to express their love in words or 
by an affected sigh or look, something objective 
it had been, always, for they had never for- 
gotten themselves even for a moment; there- 
fore they had neither given nor received the 
immaculate silent revelation of the soul. 

People had thought him fickle, but it was 
not so. He was an artist and he had been dis- 
appointed. Little things had distorted his 
relationship with women. As he looked back 
he could not remember anything really un- 
pleasant about them; they were quite good and 
charming enough — but there had been some 
little thing to disappoint and he had wondered 
where the lovely, gentle women were; were 
they only in books and dreams? 

It was loveliness he had wanted, and now he 
had found it. Loveliness had walked into his 
arms, silently, regally, and yet simply, with the 
urgent desire of a true woman’s heart, the de- 
sire to serve . More than this, he knew that 
she was there to give him beautiful children. 


§>!)a0otos 


4 6 


Beautiful children f he thought, how few there 
are, and all children should be beautiful! Na- 
ture had wanted it so ! And this he thought as 
he stood there, never taking his eyes from 
hers. Once in a while she smiled as though 
saying, “I know what you are thinking and I 
think so too.” That was the wonder of it: 
she thought so too ; not because he dominated 
her, but because she was the other part of his 
mind. When one finds this, beautiful things are 
realised. 

Again he looked at her and she smiled, and 
he thought, “Heaven lies at the feet of 
mothers.” He listened and the Silence, which 
is only relatively silent, spoke again in its own 
way, and he heard a voice and not a voice, 
whisper a strange language, made of rose petals 
falling upon snow and white notes falling upon 
silver. It was the language of the Ether which 
had neither words nor music, as we know them, 
but is built on such a fine key that material ears 
seldom hear it, for it is from the Planes, the 
things above Time — above Space. It is the 
language that we learn as we enter Paradise. 
The way to learn it is through the Silence and 
a Smile! 


VIII .— me ©umjFiotoer 


Sometimes people live in houses and sometimes 
they live in gardens. A friend of mine lived 
in a garden. Now to have a friend who lives 
in a garden is a wonderful thing. It teaches 
one much. One of the things it teaches is this 
— Each beautiful woman has a correspond- 
ingly beautiful flower as her counterpart. Some 
are roses, some are violets and some are lilies 
and hyacinths. Some are cultivated and some 
are wild. The wild flowers frolic often and 
laugh at the dignity of the very cultivated 
flowers, but they always laugh good naturedly. 
They never mean to hurt and, strangely 
enough, they never laugh at the lilies. These 
little flowers always bow their heads when they 
grow up near the lilies. There are customs and 
laws among the flowers. The garden has a 
society of its own, a very real and sweet one, 
just as society should be. The laws of the 
garden are many, but the first one is never to 
wound anything, and when the flowers observe 
47 


^batrotos 


48 


this rule they can do anything they like; there- 
fore a garden has as many moods as it has per- 
fumes, and there is a great deal of fun as well 
as great happiness. 

Now I loved the part of the garden where 
the sun-flowers grew, because it was so warm 
and bright. One of the flowers seemed to spring 
right out of the earth with joy and lift its 
head divinely towards the sun. Each evening 
I was afraid it might be gone, that the sun had 
killed it, or that it had given too much of its 
brightness to the day and that it had killed 
itself in this way; but each evening I found it 
standing still, erect, beautifully straight and 
calm — fresh, strong and beautiful! For the 
more brightness it gave, the more it received, 
thereby nourishing itself by the Immutable Law 
of Service! 

At times it seemed to smile ; certainly it had 
a personality about it and sometimes it tried 
to talk in a language of Gold, in the language 
of the sun-flowers, but I could not understand, 
so I went away reluctantly, catching only a 
part of its meaning, but some of its hope, its 
faith and courage. 

Fate took me away and when I returned to 


C ! )t ^umjHotoer 49 


the garden I was afraid to look for her and I 
was afraid to look for the sun-flowers. Surely 
they are dead, I thought; all beautiful things 
die; the world is too cold, too hard for them, 
and, with as much fear as love, I walked toward 
the garden and the sun-flowers. Some were 
dead, others half fallen and faded, but the, one 
I loved was still there and still giving the 
strength that it drew from the sun, and it still 
seemed to smile ! 

Again, in fear and love, I went deeper into 
the garden where the human sun-flower lived, 
and she too was there fresh and bright in her 
soft gown of yellow where I fancied I could see 
her thoughts breaking into gold and mingling 
with the great waves of Ether which come 
from the sky. She smiled and said things in a 
language too bright for me fully to understand, 
but some of the meaning I grasped, enough to 
realise that she was a flower that always turned 
her face toward the sun ! 


ix.— c&e ©iient S©u0ic 


She lived in two worlds. One had lost its 
charm; the materialism had been too potent, 
so the beauty was obscure. She yearned for 
the music of her other world, the Paradise 
which had been so near; but not a sound was 
heard, not a note was left, the music had gone. 
It was thus in her heart; love had gone, there- 
fore the music had ceased. 

Now some hear this music through their love 
of art, others through their love of God, but 
this soul was not developed enough to hear it 
except through personal love. So now that 
love was dead, her heart was barren, her mind 
dull; there was no life in either of them. All 
spiritual revelation and intellectual enlighten- 
ment had come to her through love and now it 
was so far away that her heart was like a great 
sun which had set so deeply that all the radiance 
had gone. 

Her friends thought her very strange and 
her physician could not understand. One day 
50 


Cfce Silent 9@u0ic 51 


an Oriental came to her home. He said: “This 
is very simple, very natural; it is a thing that 
happens to very tender souls, born through 
love. She comprehends the entire scheme of 
things through the soul and when the soul goes 
the music stops. In the Orient we call it the 
Silent Music. Her soul is like a great harp, 
perfectly strung but soundless, which only re- 
sponds to a master’s hand, and her master is no 
longer here.” 

“Will she live?” asked her friends; “she 
seems so strange and ill.” 

“No,” he said, “she will exist for a while 
and then the end will come, quietly. She will 
greet it with a smile ! Some of you call her 
‘the stranger,’ others the ‘broken heart’; her 
lover called her the ‘lily girl.’ Some say that 
she walks at night among the trees and always 
with lilies in her hand. Her gown is white, 
and it is said that only the white things touch 
her as she passes. The blossoms open their 
petals, the silver rays from the moon form a 
path in which she walks and the deep night 
grows more silent! Someone has taken her 
lover away, someone who does not belong, 
someone of the world who makes claims and 


©J)aDoto 0 


52 


ties that bind! Her lover does not break them 
and return to her; he yields and becomes a part 
of the world where the lily girl cannot go; a 
world harsh, crude and meaningless. In this 
world his soul is disintegrating. She had hoped 
that his soul had just gone away, but now she 
knows that it is dead and there is no way to 
save him; he is no longer beautiful, he has noth- 
ing to give, even to the world that holds him.” 

And so her story is very simple; so simple 
that only wise people can understand it. 
Nothing in the world is single. An unkind ac- 
tion never causes suffering to one’s self alone; it 
also causes someone else to suffer, perhaps to 
die. There are some strangely sad things in 
this world. The Silent Music is one of them / 


x.— Cf)e astral Courtsiup 


Tact is an exquisite thing. It is something to 
be emulated. Patience is a noble thing and 
there is genius in knowing how to wait. 

To be negative on the objective plane and 
to be definite on the subjective plane is an art 
requiring both tact and strength. Few realise 
this and few could use these occult laws if 
they tried, but to those who know and care 
enough to try there comes a revelation beauti- 
ful and secure. 

To love with wisdom is indeed a profound 
thing; to be silent, to say nothing and yet to 
tell everything seems a paradox, but not when 
it is considered in a dual form. 

Now this lady of dreams was not a mere 
dreamer of dreams : she was an initiate in the 
kingdom of things unseen. She had become an 
initiate by a tedious and tragic process, that 
of sorrow and service; but since it is the Es- 
sence that is wanted and not the path that leads 
53 


©Jmootos 


54 


to it, the path will be eliminated, for each soul 
must travel to its goal according to its state of 
development. 

Now there was something altogether charm- 
ing and naive in this courtship of the lady of 
dreams; something modest and something dar- 
ing. On the objective plane she was both silent 
and modest; thereby she awakened interest in 
the man she loved. But on the astral plane she 
was not negative, she was active, she was the 
seeker, the lover, the one who planned. Desire 
is a subtle thing, it reacts according to sincerity 
and intensity, and since this woman was both 
sincere and intense the premise for her occult 
work was secure. She could not meet this man 
on the spiritual plane because he was not de- 
veloped to it, she had to meet him on the 
astral plane where weird and strange denizens 
live, the abode of elementals. Whenever she 
found him, she would try and take his soul into 
the finer spheres where they found their par- 
ticular Paradise, that of love and art, for these 
two were artists. 

Now the woman remembered these experi- 
ences and the man did not. Often she would 
begin a sentence and then suddenly she would 


Cfce astral Courtship 55 


become silent, realising that he did not remem- 
ber. It was so natural for her to say, “Don’t 
you remember this or that?” Her impulse 
was always to say, “Do you not know me ? Can 
you not recollect and understand?” Often 
he would tell her things that she already knew, 
things that had happened subjectively. Often 
she would wonder, “Can you not remember our 
hours of jade and gold, the flowers, the per- 
fume, the dreams?” But he could not remem- 
ber anything. She was so discouraged that she 
gave up all hope of personal realisation and 
then a miracle happened ! 

The next time they met he said, “I too had a 
dream ! I was not sensitive enough to remem- 
ber before! How wonderful it was ! You were 
there! It seemed that you had always been 
there. You said, ‘Isn’t it beautiful? There is 
nothing harsh in Paradise ! When I asked you 
how we were to know whether we were predes- 
tined for each other, you told me that the soul 
through whom you reached the highest point of 
beauty is the soul which must be yours by an 
Immutable Law. Some other things you said, 
but this was enough — that we belonged to each 


©ftadotos 


56 


other in this infinite way. Is this not enough for 
anyone to remember?” 

And this was the Astral Courtship ! 


XI.— Ct)e arts 


“Do not write my son,” said the philosopher, 
as he looked deep into the eyes of a young 
student. “It is not for you.” 

“But why can I not write?” said the young 
man. 

“Writing is a subtle thing and the kind that 
you want to do is transcendental; it is not of 
the mind, it is of the soul. Of course there is 
much writing that is good and is of the mind. 
It is objective, it is brilliant and entertaining, 
but subjective writing has its essence in the 
soul.” 

“Yes, I know,” said the young man. “But I 
have a good mind, a liberal education. I ” 

“Yes,” said the philosopher, “but that is not 
all. You tell me that you wish to express 
spiritual truths through a romantic medium. 
In other words, you wish to write metaphysical 
stories. This means that you must make your 
themes strong and your romance intense, so as 
to attract your readers. This takes infinite 
57 


§)j)aDoto0 


58 


tact and taste. Your brain, your liberal educa- 
tion, will not be enough. You must have these 
and more. First, you must love your work 
intensely and you must have a sense of rhythm, 
for all perfect prose is built on a rhythm, just 
as poetry is. But you must possess refinement 
and sincerity also. Sincerity is half of art! } 

“But,” said the student, “sincerity cannot be 
half of art!” 

“But it is,” said the philosopher. “Sincerity 
gives strength, realism and love, and these are 
the first principles.” 

“It seems too subtle,” said the student. 
“One must have so many qualities. It is very 
discouraging.” 

“Yes, one must have sincerity, love, refine- 
ment, tact, rhythm and grace, and one must 
not merely possess these qualities — one must 
live them. You are trying also to do a very 
difficult thing. You have said that you wish 
to write in the ‘first person.’ Many have tried 
this and have failed, for to write in the first 
person requires the tact and refinement of 
which I speak. The first person can be the 
means of transmitting the highest dramatic ex- 
pression. It can also be the surest form of 


Cfte att0 


59 


reaching your reader, for it is natural, and 
naturalness is beauty itself. Most of the ro- 
mantic masterpieces in prose are written in the 
first person. One finds it in the Oriental litera- 
ture that I know and the French literature that 
you know. There is your Balzac, de Musset, 
and many classics with which you are familiar. 
The Gitanjali of Tagore has its perfect beauty 
in the fact that it is written so strongly and so 
personally of the love of the Infinite. Tagore 
makes you feel his love so keenly that it be- 
comes your love. 

“Oscar Wilde did this in English in his prose 
poem, the ‘De Profundis.’ You are in prison 
with him because of the personal note, and this 
required not only the genius but the aristocracy 
of Oscar Wilde. There is a great deal of 
aristocracy in literature, my son. 

“Take my advice and do not try to write, 
and never speak of writing as an art, for it is 
all the arts combined. To write well one 
must have a sense of colour, music and sculp- 
ture. Writing is the combined beauty of all the 
arts expressed in purple and gold. The purple 
is the symbol of magnificent structure; the gold 
is the inspiration which comes from the soul 


@>f)adoto$ 


60 


which isi not tarnished by egotism or superficial 
desire. It is a divine consistency, symmetrical 
development and subtle understanding. It is 
as deep as the deep notes of an organ, it is as 
fine as the pure voice of a child; it is as sweet 
as the music of a flower, as exquisite as the 
dawn, as solemn as the night; as perfect as a 
pearl! Literature is — The Arts . . .” 


XII.— Cj)e mmt jTlarne 


“Do you love me?” asked the man. 

“Yes,” answered the woman, “but it is not 
the love you desire. I am your friend!” 

“Friend!” said the man. “I do not want 
friendship.” 

“Do not say that,” answered the woman. 

“I want your love,” answered the man. 

“You do not understand,” said the woman. 

“I understand that I love you.” 

“But,” said the woman, “you are not really 
in love with me, we are just two weary children 
who understand each other. Just let us be 
friends. Friendship can be very beautiful.” 

“I too have loved deeply,” said the man. 
“When the years came on I realised that my 
love had not been like the ship that flounders 
and staggers and then creeps into shore, but 
that it was shipwrecked, literally, definitely!” 

“Yes,” answered the woman, “but you have 
just said that you love me. Do you not realise 
that it is only affection and admiration that you 
61 


§>I)aOoto0 


6 2 


feel for me? We are drawn together by sym- 
pathy. Our lives are linked, but as friends. 
The great love is so deep that it burns itself 
into a White Flame and the White Flame has 
no passion in it; it is as stilled and hushed aa 
an early morning. Do you not understand that 
it is the White Flame which now burns in our 
hearts? How futile it would be to think that 
we are capable of loving again! Our natures 
are too refined and too sincere to pretend that 
it can be otherwise. We could never be happy. 
We would be conscious all the time of the dif- 
ference, we would compare the present with 
the past! Let us revel in a perfect friendship.” 

“I could never be happy that way,” answered 
the man. “It’s lonely, it is not normal, it is 
very bleak.” 

“Oh, no, it isn’t,” said the woman. “It is like 
a beautiful night after a beautiful day. I am 
the night and ‘she’ was the day to you !” 

“Yes,” answered the man, “but there was 
the sun that scorched me.” 

“Then it should teach you to love the night,” 
said the woman. 

“I shall love it if you are there,” said the 
man. 


Cfte MJfnte jFlame 63 


“I shall be there always,” said the woman. 

“If that is so, then the nights will be beauti- 
ful and I shall not be afraid.” 

“Only children are afraid of the dark,” said 
the woman. “Grown-up people see the moon 
in its full beauty, the stars in their glory, and 
they see friendship as an Art; those who have 
loved and learned how to laugh the shadows 
away!” 

“But I so want music ” said the man. “The 
others kept the music away! In my dreams I 
have seen a face (I can scarcely remember it), 
only the eyes and the smile were like yours. 
There was a cheek against mine and then a 
beautiful peace; something white and infinite! 
I wish that I might dream again!” 

“You may dream again and see the face, the 
smile, and feel the peace, the music — the har- 
mony you long for,” said the woman. 

“But not the cheek against mine?” asked the 
man. 

“No,” answered the woman. “I tell you, 
my friend — there is only one thing in our hearts 
now — it is very sad and yet it is very beauti- 
ful — It is The White Flame!” 


xiii. — Sacrifice 


“He is strong and beautiful,” said her heart. 
While the soul answered — “Sacrifice.” 

“Oh,” said the heart, “what a cold, barren 
thing sacrifice is.” 

“Yes,” said the mind, “it is only for old 
people and children.” 

And the soul said again — “Sacrifice. It is 
waiting for you, each day you have come nearer 
to it. Sometimes you almost touch the plane 
where sacrifice dwells but you think it so colour- 
less that you slip back; but surely you will be 
caught in its power and, strangely enough, you 
shall be happy then.” 

“Oh,” said the heart, “it is lonely.” And 
the mind answered, “It is frightfully dull!” 
“It taunts me,” said the heart. “It bores me,” 
added the mind; “let us run away so we shall 
not hear the soul talking again.” 

“But how shall we?” asked the heart. 

“Easily,” answered the mind. “Let us be 
more active, let us go into the rush of life; we 
64 


Sacrifice 


65 


have been dreaming and we are in danger of 
being caught in the web of our dreams. They 
hang about us in long silver threads that are 
tied to the blue and the purple of twilight. 
They have no brightness in them. Let us go 
where there are colour, brightness and sunshine ; 
to a land of coral and jade where we may be 
drunk with the crimson of life. We need sun- 
shine and laughter. We are still young, you 
know!” 

“Yes,” answered the heart, “but we must 
only seem to elude the soul. It will follow us ! 
Our days may be gorgeous and our evenings 
gay but there will be no sweetness in them. 
There will be nothing fine or transcendental! 
I am afraid that I shall miss the soul!” 

“Oh, no,” said the mind, “let us try it and 
see. Let us pass among people in a great 
carnival of joy. Let us hold in our hand the 
key to the city of youthful dreams. Surely there 
will be loveliness there !” 

“No,” said the heart again. “Can’t you feel 
the futility of it?” 

“Then,” said the mind, “as long as you feel 
and I merely think, let us go for a while with 
the soul and if we do not like it we can always 


§>!)aooto0 


66 


return. Let us think of it as a new adventure. 
Let us not take it too seriously. Let us go 
casually, reasonably.” 

“Yes,” said the heart, “but can we return ? 
I am afraid of the soul’s power, its stillness, its 
whiteness !” 

And the soul kept calling — “Sacrifice.” 

“If you will come with me,” said the soul, 
“I shall take you far away from the one you 
love, because your love can only hurt him ! In 
leaving him you can serve him.” 

“But I am afraid,” said the heart. 

“Yes,” interrupted the mind, “that is the 
way of the heart; it thinks the mind calculating 
and cold and yet has to rely upon it to decide 
all things of importance. So I shall decide ; we 
shall go now. I shall wait no longer.” 

“Yes,” said the heart, “but I am lonely and 
sad and you are so cold. . . .” 

On, on they went. 

“Are we closer now?” asked the heart. 

“Can’t you feel?” said the mind. 

“How can I know? But you can see,” said 
the heart. 

“Oh, I see nothing remarkable,” answered 


©acrtftce 


67 


the mind. “It is picturesque and unique, but I 
must confess that I am bored! It has a certain 
charm, but remember this is your world, not 
mine ! I do not function here. This is a new 
plane, a Paradise, so it is the heart that must 
lead the mind, for you are closer to the soul. 
Do not ask me any more questions. I am un- 
able to answer, you are now the pilot; I only 
brought you out for a short distance to give 
you courage and strength. I shall speak no 
more now; this is your world.” 

“My world?” asked the heart, “and I am 
so afraid!” 

“The mind no longer speaks to me,” said the 
heart to the soul, “and you seem very far away. 
I seem to be caught between two worlds, but I 
must go on, on to the land of vision. . . .” 

On, on the heart went, like a frightened bird 
into the vast Silence. Suddenly the heart 
grew warmer, for a sound of faint music struck 
upon the air. There was a scent of wild 
flowers, the breath of spring and suddenly the 
soul came closer to the heart and said: “Look 
below; can you see a pool there surrounded by 


§>JmDoto0 


68 


crystal and jade, and can you see the water lilies 
and the petals of a rose?” 

“Yes,” said the heart, “it is a very lovely 
scene, but I see no people and I so love people !” 

“Yes,” said the soul, “but come a little 
farther.” 

“I am so tired now,” said the heart; “let me 
sleep.” 

“Yes,” said the soul, “sleep and I shall he 
your dream! I will carry you into the heart of 
Paradise.” 

The heart slept, and the soul, which never 
sleeps, said again, “I shall he your dream!” 
And this was the dream of the heart and the 
soul : 

There was a beautiful blue cloud near the 
crescent moon. It loved the moon, but it was 
afraid of its serenity. There was a little child 
trying to reach this cloud, but it was afraid of 
the blue which slipped through her fingers and 
passed on silently into the sky. There were 
small flowers that wanted to bloom, but they 
too were afraid of the moon, and the cloud 
and the child and the flowers are a symbol 
which the soul understood. There were many 
figures in the sky. Some were majestic and 


Sacrifice 


69 


solemn. Others very tender and sweet. They 
grouped themselves about, forming a big can- 
opy through which the stars smiled. Suddenly 
the heart awoke. “If I could hear music I 
would not be afraid, I always loved it so!” 

“Come closer to me,” said the soul, “and 
you will hear.” 

“Oh,” said the heart, “I have left him be- 
hind and I loved him so! I left him because 
you told me to. You said it was to help him 
and that it was the only way! He will never 
know, and I so tried to be helpful and kind! 
I cannot hear the music now that I am sepa- 
rated from him!” 

“I will tell you a mighty paradox,” said the 
soul. “The farther a soul goes from the body 
and mind, the closer it is to the soul it loves. 
Come and I shall show you something more 
beautiful than anything in Paradise, more per- 
fect than the blue cloud, the child, the music 
and the figures in the sky ! Have you guessed 
who the figures in the sky are?” 

“Of course,” # said the heart; “they are the 
souls of the people who lived on earth.” 

“No,” said the soul, “they are the souls of 
the people still living on earth.” 


§>!)aDoto0 


70 


“Yes,” said the heart, “but no one waits 
for me!” 

“Come closer,” said the soul. “Can you 
not see?” 

“No,” answered the heart, “perhaps it is be- 
cause I am too tired; it is because I have loved 
too deeply.” 

“Do you not see someone coming toward 
you? He sees you and smiles!” 

“No,” said the heart, “but I feel his 
thoughts as they dart into my heart like music. 
The music is turned into love and has kissed 
my heart. It is so strange and beautiful ! Do 
you think I shall see him again?” 

“Yes, but you must come closer to me,” said 
the soul, “and without fear.” 

“His soul and mine” said the heart. “I 
understand now; it is the great Miracle, the 
miracle which sacrifice brings ! These are the 
last words of my heart — his soul and mine!” 


XIV.— Cj)e dees 


Since the world began, little symbols have 
carried mighty messages and are perhaps the 
sweetest of all things to the weary souls on 
earth. 

When the Vision came it was such a short 
and simple thing, and one of the tender kind. 
In her dreams she saw a beautiful, old-fash- 
ioned house, set in some very glorious trees. 
It was in the deep of night. She walked wearily 
up to the old home, trying to awaken memories 
in her heart, to relive the days when she had 
lived and loved so tenderly and when she too 
had been loved, cherished and honoured ! And 
now there was no honour, no tenderness, no 
home. She was merely a lonely woman, among 
thousands of other lonely women looking for 
happiness; so it was very natural that in her 
dreams she should go there, just as children go 
to their mother in the dusk, afraid of the 
shadows and looking for the loveliness of 
home. 


71 


@>!)atioto0 


72 


As she walked beneath the trees, they bowed 
their heads. “This,” she thought, “is a greet- 
ing, and perhaps the old servants will come 
out soon.” She walked quietly, wearily, and 
said, “Perhaps I shall hear the music too ! The 
music of the dead, sweet South. The music of 
chivalrous men and noble women, the music 
of the Patrician kind, that which too is so dead 
and sweet! Or perhaps I shall hear a lullaby,” 
she thought; “perhaps the old servants will 
sing!” 

But there was no song, only a vast silence, 
a great loneliness and God. Now the silence 
is God, but she did not know it then. She 
only wanted to live again, and she wanted the 
human touch. 

“How dear it all is,” she thought, “and yet 
the house is changed ! It seems smaller. Per- 
haps it has fallen in. It too is old and weary; 
surely it has changed; it has lost its dignity, its 
stately line!” Closer she crept, scarcely dar- 
ing to look again, and then she cried, “Mam- 
my, my old black Mammy, come out! Come 
out and sing to me again!” But there was 
no answer. Suddenly she heard a melody, a 
strange but very dear old melody: 


Cfje Ctees 73 


“Weep no more, my lady, weep no more to-night; 

I will sing a song of my old Kentucky home, 

Of my old Kentucky home, to-night ” 

On, on went the quaint dear words. “But,” 
she thought, “what a strange thing to sing to 
me! How can you sing this song to me?” she 
cried, as she walked up the steps toward the 
door. 

Wearily she unfastened the great lock; 
slowly it opened. 

“It is all changed,” she said, “but that is 
very natural. It is weary, very weary; it is 
like my heart.” 

Walking into the old library, she touched a 
few dusty books, glanced up at the fine paint- 
ings and looked lovingly at a portrait of a 
royal personage still hanging on the wall. 
Again she heard the melody. It seemed to 
come up from the valley and echo against the 
hill, and then she said aloud, “Oh, dear Christ, 
why did this have to be?” And all the while 
the music of the old servants went on, on 

“Weep no more, my lady, weep no more to-night.” 

“The irony of it, the bitterness of it,” she 
cried. “How can they sing that song to me!" 


74 @fmDoto 0 


Dropping into a chair she looked out of the 
window, into the darkness. Suddenly she 
noticed that the house was encircled by peach 
trees, heavily laden with blossoms. They are 
so rosy and warm, so gentle and kind ! What 
does it mean? she thought. Walking toward 
the window, she saw that the house was cov- 
ered with peach blossoms. How lovely they 
are, but what do they mean? Taking up an 
old candle she lit it and walked out of the 
house, but she blew out the candle for it was not 
needed ; the place was lit up in a sort of golden 
light, a glorious brightness that fell upon the 
pink blossoms in the night ! 

And as she walked toward the east end of 
the house she put her face through the blossoms 
to see if they were real, and as she did, another 
face touched hers. Lovingly she turned and 
looked at it — there were two beautiful eyes 
glowing with love, tenderness and apprecia- 
tion and they smiled! He said nothing. She 
did not touch this wonderful face, she fell upon 
her knees and cried, “Oh, my God, it’s you!” 
And then she awakened. All that night and 
day she felt his presence, all that year she was 


Cfte Cree 0 75 


happy and blessed; but what did the blossoms 
mean? 

The next year when spring was in its full 
beauty, the man whom she loved came back to 
her. It was just the time that the peach trees 
bloomed. 


xv. — 3 Dream anO tfte 


It was a dream. I was in a strange place im- 
mediately by the sea. There were a great 
many people. There was a storm. The waves 
rushed out and beat against the house, but 
there was no vindictive element in them. The 
waves were a bright green and the house was 
green; it was a shade that no artist can paint, 
for it was the green that nature alone ex- 
presses. 

Quite suddenly a streak of lightning tore the 
sky and sank into the sea. There was a strong 
triumphant clap of thunder; a huge bronze 
door opened suddenly and a little child walked 
out of it and came toward me. She wore a 
green coat and a green bonnet. She was cry- 
ing. She said nothing, she just held up her 
arms to me; I took her and kissed the tears 
from her rosy cheeks. Her brown hair too 
was full of tears, but the tears were like dew- 
drops and then quite suddenly turned into em- 
eralds as they fell upon my breast. 

76 


a Dream anfl tfce §>ea 77 


I walked calmly down the long stairway go- 
ing toward the sea. I passed the people, they 
said nothing. 

“What shall I do with the child,’’ I thought. 
“I must find her mother!” 

“Where is your mother, darling?” I said. 
“Help me to find her for you.” 

But the child said nothing, she only clung 
more closely to me, resting her sweet face upon 
mine. 

Slowly I walked down the long stairs. They 
seemed endless. I looked at each woman as I 
passed, but somehow there was no recognition; 
no one wanted the child. 

“What shall I do? What shall I do?” I 
said, as I walked on and on down toward the 
sea. 

“Is your mother outside?” I said. “Per- 
haps she is waiting for you on the shore.” 
There was no answer. 

“I am so tired, so weary, the stairs are so 
long,” I said aloud, “the people have all gone 
away and I am alone. Will you help me, dear, 
to find your mother?” 

The storm ceased, the waves went back to 


©Imootog 


78 


the sea. The sun came out and the green was 
more beautiful than before. 

Suddenly I caught sight of a tall figure 
standing in the doorway. I could not see dis- 
tinctly, but somehow the figure radiated hap- 
piness. 

“It is she, it is she!” I cried aloud. Walk- 
ing hastily I went eagerly forward, but as I 
got closer to the door I realised that the figure 
was that of a man. 

“Oh!” I cried, “what shall I do? I thought 
I had found her mother!” 

“You have,” he answered solemnly. 

“Do not jest,” I said. “I am in distress. 
She has lost her way.” 

“It is you who have lost the way,” he an- 
swered. “Look now at your arms, at your 
hands. Are they not beautiful? Were they 
ever really beautiful before? Look at your 
gown, there are emeralds upon it. Were they 
ever there before? Come, look into the mirror 
here. Look at your hair, your smile. Now 
look at the child, what do you see?” 

“I see nothing,” I answered, “except that 
she is beautiful. That is all ” 

“Do you not see anything else?” he asked. 


a Dream an 0 tfte 79 


“No,” I answered. 

“Look again,” he said. “See — see ” 

“Oh! I do not understand,” I answered 
dreamily. “She looks like you! Take her, 
she is yours, not mine. I am so glad to have 
found you.” 

“She is yours,” he answered. “Do you not 
understand?” 

“No, I do not understand, I do not know 
you; we are strangers and we are poor and 
terribly alone and we have no friends, for we 
have nothing to give them!” 

“Nothing to give them?” he asked. “We 
have our youth, our art; is that not something 
to give? And the arms that cling to you so 
tenderly, were they not created by the infinite 
artist himself for you, for women of your 
kind? It is not the mere child of the flesh but 
of the spirit as well ; the tears that broke into 
emeralds, are they not precious? Her smile, 
is it not beautiful? It breaks through the 
dense clouds of the ether and finds its way 
to the essence of things, sinking into the heart 
of a flower, making it send out its perfume to 
the pilgrims in the night, giving hope and a 
prayer ! And no matter how far it goes away 




80 


it always comes back to you! It creates a halo 
about you, a something that no one can resist, 
thus making a force that blesses and inspires, 
making you the motif of life, the expression of 
true womanhood ” 

Silently we walked toward the sea. “It is 
so golden, so beautiful,” he said, “and the 
green is a symbol of our love, is so unworldly, 
nature itself has created it. Our life must be 
like this — just as deep, just as strong. Let 
us walk until the purple shadows come to 
greet the night and let us be silent, for 
there are voices in the air — they are singing 
your bridal songs — some are so gentle and 
sweet; the others are so strong and clear. The 

first is your love — the second is mine 

Let us listen and hear!” 

“I am tired now,” I said. “Let us rest 
a while.” 

“Not yet,” said he. “Look away from the 
sea, look to the shore ; do you see a small house 
there, a white one with' green windows in the 
trees? There is a small garden, too; can you 
see it now?” 

“No, not yet, I see only the trees and the 
evening star! Yes, I do see now; soon we 


3 Dream and tfte ©ea 81 


shall be there; I am so glad; it is beautiful and 
I am very weary; she lies so beautifully but so 
heavily upon my heart, this little child of ours.” 

“Soon,” he answered, “the weariness will all 
go away and you will not suffer any more.” 

“Never again?” I asked. 

“Never again,” he answered. 

“Is God there too?” I asked. “It seems so 
wonderful, and the trees move in a kind of 
glory I do not understand.” 

“Perhaps if you kissed me, you would,” he 
said. 

“Yes, and I have never kissed you before! 
It is so strange.” 

“Yes, you have,” he answered. “I have 
kissed you all through the years, first in India, 
then in England and here — and it was always 
by the sea !” 

“And was it always like this?” I asked. 

“Yes,” he answered; “it was so great — so 
simple and so sweet — it was always you — 
love and a little child . . .” 


THE END 












































































. 
















* 













* 































































. 

























LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



00021^7722 


